The Dictionary of Brand
Who You Callin’ a BHAG?
Or, Why You Need The Dictionary of Brand
by Marty Neumeier
Your new client sends you a breathless email: “Our CBO is building an IMT to reorg the brand architecture from the bottom up. We’re deciding on a BHAG this week, and as soon as we refine our backstory, we’ll probably need an avatar. What do you think?”
You could respond in several ways: 1) “What’s an avatar?” 2) “I’m not really an architect.” 3) Could you please translate that into English? 4) “Don’t call me a beehag.”
None of these answers is likely to raise your client’s confidence in your brand savvitude, especially after you sold yourself as an expert. However, if there were a copy of The Dictionary of Brand on your shelf, you could look these terms up and give her a knowledgeable response.
The Dictionary of Brand is published by the AIGA Center for Brand Experience, and contains 211 terms currently in use by leading brand professionals. Some of the terms are fairly stable, such as brand equity and primacy effect, while others, such as brand police and parallel thinking, have sprung up like mushrooms and may well disappear overnight. (This dictionary is nothing if not fresh.)
The design was done by Ann Willoughby and her staff in Kansas City, recycled paper was donated by Smart, the book itself was produced by Metropolitan Printers in Vancouver, and the editing was led by yours truly. To help me compile the terms and regularize their various definitions, I pulled together an all-star advisory council of top authors and practitioners from a variety of brand disciplines, then leaned heavily on my fellow members of the Brand Experience board for additional guidance.
Our goal was simple: to make the book available to every designer and client who wants one, at a low price, through Amazon and selected AIGA events.
Why do we suddenly need a dictionary of brand? Because, at least in my view, brand is rapidly becoming the lingua franca of marketing and design. It provides a level playing field for all the people who contribute to the building of a business, whether they’re marketing executives, strategists, graphic designers, researchers, advertising agencies, PR firms, or Web designers. Today all designers are brand designers—the only question is where we fit in the system. (See my articles, Survival of the Fittingest and Who’s Afraid of the Big Brand Wolf?, both accessible in Voice: AIGA Journal of Design, at www.aiga.org.)
Now, back to your client and her email. This time, before replying, you grab for your brand dictionary to refresh your memory. Instead of blurting out, “Don’t call me a beehag!”, you respond with savoir professionnel: “Well, of course we could explore some avatars—maybe even take a look at some icons—but shouldn’t we consider an earcon as well? First we’ll need to meet with the metateam and agree on a zag, then we can put together a perceptual map.” If she seems a little confused, just send her a copy of the brand dictionary.
Marty Neumeier serves on the national board of the AIGA, as well as on the board of the AIGA Center for Brand Experience. He is author of The Brand Gap, (co-published by New Riders and AIGA), and former publisher of Critique magazine. He currently manages Neutron LLC, a San Francisco firm that coaches companies in brand collaboration.
Source:
AGIA
